New Perspective
by carcrashedheart
Summary: One-Shot. It's Charlie Grieder's fifteenth birthday, and he's about to have one of the weirdest birthdays of his life. Spoilers from each of the three books inside.


**A/N: The Monument 14 trilogy is possibly my favourite three books of all time, so when I saw that there is actually a section for it on here, I (obviously) just had to write a fic. However, I am a lazy butthole and I don't have the motivation to write a really long fanfic so a one-shot is all you're getting. Sorry.**

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My name is Charlie. I am fifteen years old. I am the son of Astrid Heyman and Dean Grieder. Or - that's what I was led to believe until a few weeks ago, the day of my fifteenth birthday.

The three of us sat down at our kitchen table in the middle of our dining room. Normally, when I wake up, mom has decorated the house really sweetly - they hand me presents one by one and I thank them, then we carry on with our lives (or, sometimes, they take me out for the day). Not this time. Oh no.

"Charlie," Dad said quietly. "We need to talk."

My back straightened up immediately. "About what?" I tried to sound as calm as possible, but in reality I was terrified. My parents were never like this. What was wrong? Had I done something I wasn't meant to do? Had I forgotten to do something important? If so, why we're they deciding to tell me this _on the morning of my birthday?_

Mom looked over at Dad nervously. "Before we start, we want you to know that both of issues love you very, very much. Nothing can ever change that."

"I know that already," I whispered, now very much confused. "Why do you have to tell me?"

"There's something you ought to know." Dad seemed almost...scared - completely unlike him. What was going on? I nodded, feeling like I should at least seem like I know what he means.

Mom drew in a deep breath.

"Fifteen and a half years ago, myself and your father - plus twelve other kids - were trapped inside a Greenway superstore during the 'freak hailstorm' of 2024. One of the other kids there was my boyfriend at the time, Jake." Dad winced a little at this. "Jake and I had been together for a pretty long while, and...we had..._experimented._" Eesh. Sex is a touchy subject - one I would prefer not to talk about.

"After a little while trapped in the Greenway, I found out that I was pregnant. I planned to tell Jake - but he went away, to try and find held for us...and he didn't return. He left us all, trapped in a superstore, with no help whatsoever. Almost immediately after he left, most of the kids decided that they wanted to leave the Greenway and try and get to DIA. Now, when we arrived in the Greenway, we arrived by driving through the glass in a school bus - we had some help fixing up the bus, packed it full with stuff, and were all ready to go. But I couldn't go. Because of the baby."

Dad took over here. "Your mom knew about my massive crush on her, so she decided to tell me about the baby, in hope that I'd stay behind with her. It worked. I'm sure you know about how different blood types were affected differently by the compounds in the air?" I nodded. "Well your mother and I are both type O, which means that when we were exposed, we would have basically become aggressive and tried to kill everyone around us. We used this as an excuse when they asked us why we wanted to stay behind. They then said that everybody who was O should stay with us, which basically meant staying with a little brat named Chloe. Some twins didn't want to go without us, so they stayed as well. It was the five of us in the Greenway, while the others - including your Uncle Alex - went off to Denver.

"During this time, Jake returned. However, he was not as 'heroic' as before. All he wanted to do was drink and get high, and it was awfully draining having him around."

"Soon after Jake arrived back," Mom carried on, "A group of men arrived in our school bus. They told us that they had kicked our friends out of it, killed one of them and then driven the bus back to Monument, where they had been told we were staying. I hid with the three young kids while your dad and Jake took care of the men.

"When they were ...gone, we knew we had to get to Denver no matter what. Then - we heard a helicopter. Above the Greenway."

"Oh, no." I already knew what they were thinking. I was thinking the same thing.

"We had no gas masks, and so if we left the building, we would get aggressive and try to kill everyone. To get away from the helicopter, we tried to get the bus outside the store to work, but there was some kind of white mould growing on the tyres, and it had eaten away so much of the rubber that it was basically just running on the metal rims. It wouldn't budge.

"Then we heard shouting from the helicopter. It was Alex. Somehow, at DIA, he had managed to find our neighbour - the father of the twins who had stayed with us at the Greenway. We all rode in the helicopter to Denver, then went to a camp in Canada."

"I don't see what this has to do with me." I was just speaking the truth.

"You will." Mom stated calmly.

Dad continued. "After a little while in the camp, we discovered that one of our friends was being held in another camp in Missouri - and being treated extremely badly there. Our 'leader' decided to go and find her. Mom and I needed to get away as well, because apparently they were taking pregnant women who had been exposed to the compounds for testing. We went with our leader, Niko, and Jake, who made it clear that he wanted to come even though we told him to stay behind. We all headed towards Missouri. Long story short, Niko left to find our friend Josie, Jake ran away again and your mom..."

Mom finished off. "Gave birth. To...to you, Charlie."

I was shocked. Speechless. I went back over the story they had just told me in my head. _Jake and I had been together for a pretty long while, and...we had...experimented. _Then - _I found out that I was pregnant. _And lastly - _Your mom gave birth. To...to you, Charlie._

I pushed my chair back and rose from the table. "I need a minute." They protested, obviously, but I was already up the stairs and in my bedroom.

I stayed in there for longer than I thought. Two hours. Just to go over what I'd just discovered. Why hadn't they told me earlier? Was there any other lies they'd told me that I'd believed for the last fifteen years? Before I could think about it anymore, I heard my door creak open.

"Hey."

Wait. I don't know that voice. Maybe they've come to kill me. But they don't sound like murderers I've heard about. Normally they just stab you. I turned my head to the side a little. "Who are you?"

"My name is Mr. Simonsen. But I guess you can call me Jake."

My eyes widened. I felt a mixture of immediate emotions, one of which being anger. Anger at him more than my parents, and I'd never even met this guy before. I sat up on my bed. "What do you want?"

He drew in a deep breath, preparing to talk. "I want to be a part of your life, Charlie. Thats what I wanted from the start."

"You left it a bit late."

"Look. I know that you three have established a family life now, but I always said that I wanted you to think of me as your father. I have the title, Geraldine has the role."

"Geraldine?"

"Dean. Your dad."

_Of course, _I thought sarcastically.

After a few seconds of silence - "Why did you wait so long to introduce yourself?" I asked nervously.

"I was waiting to get sober. It took much longer than expected. I just didn't want people to ask you things like 'Oh, wheres your dad then?' and you'd have to reply with 'In rehab' or something stupid like that."

It seemed fair enough, but I still couldn't forgive him (or my parents) for lying to me for so long. "Look, I can't suddenly accept you as my father. Dean's my dad. He raised me when you didn't. I can't just put you in his place."

"And I don't expect you to." He handed me a little black box that I had previously not noticed. "Please open this."

Confused, I unpackaged the box and took out the contents. It was a little black device - what it did, I have no idea. Jake seemed to notice the confused expression laid upon my face, as he then explained what it was.

"Its a video camera. It tapes videos. I used it when we were stuck in the Greenway back in Monument, when I had to go and inspect a hospital to see if anybody was still inside it. I used this camera to communicate with the others - including your mom and dad - back in the store."

I turned it around in my hands. It was a nice model - a few scratches and dents, but altogether, pretty great. They don't sell them anymore. I flicked the button at the top of the camera...and yep, it works perfectly as well.

"Thank you," I said, looking up at Jake with a big smile plastered to my face. "I really appreciate it."

"You're welcome. I needed to get rid of it somehow anyway. Y'know...cluttering up my house and such." I nodded.

We talked for a little while more and then wandered downstairs to face my parents. I was hungry anyway - I hadn't eaten anything since dinner the night before.

They tried to talk to me straight away, but to shut them up I just ran straight at them and hugged them for at least five minutes. I've heard stories that I used to hug them for ages as apologies when I was little, so I hoped that this would work this time. It did.

My name is Charlie. I am fifteen years old. I am the son of Astrid Heyman and Dean Grieder.

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**A/N: I'm sorry that:**  
**1. The majority of this is just a summary of the trilogy**  
**2. The ending is so bad**

**Please feel free to give me constructive criticism in the review section :)**

**Adois amigos **

**carcrashedheart x**


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